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London, United Kingdom
Welcome to Shay's story and thank you for taking the time to find out how Shay is doing. It is a place to share our hopes, sadness and the happy times that our little man has. Shay in April 2008 was diagnosed with Pearson's Syndrome a Mitochondrial disease with no cure. Pearson syndrome is very rare, less than a hundred cases have been reported worldwide. It characteristically present in early infancy with pallor, failure to thrive, pancytopenia and diarrhoea. Additional manifestations often include progressive external ophthalmoplegia, proximal myopathy with weakness, and neurologic disturbances. Multiple organ involvement is quite variable. Most infants die before age 3, often due to unremitting metabolic acidosis, infection, or liver failure. Those few individuals who can be medically supported through infancy may experience a full recovery of marrow and pancreatic function. These children eventually undergo a transformation from Pearson's syndrome to Kearns-Sayre syndrome with the development of ptosis, incoordination, mental retardation and episodic coma. Life as we use to know it I cannot remember. We have to live in hope that a miracle will happen for our son.

Friday 15 July 2011

1st Hospital Visit!

Shay has had a bad couple of weeks and is now well on the road to recovery. Firstly, Shay has been complaining of pain in his legs. He will wake up in the mornings limping and cannot walk down the stairs. This seems to gradually get better after a couple of hours. Lately however, it has been happening more throughout the day with no recovery in between episodes. It got to the point where we were so worried that I phoned Shay's paediatric consultant at his local hospital. She advised for us to bring him in straight away. We were extremely worried that Shay was showing signs of metabolic acidosis. The doctors were extremely quick at taking bloods and sending them to the lab to be tested. I am estactic to say that they came back negative showing no signs of acidosis. We don't know what is causing his pain but he still has it and complains constantly to us. When he is with other children he tends to hide how he feels as he just wants to be part of a group and be like everyone else.

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